


Kismet

by speakpirate



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 17:26:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11605386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakpirate/pseuds/speakpirate
Summary: They've always been the kind of girls who do everything together.





	Kismet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lco123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lco123/gifts).



\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

_"It's all any of us wants. To find a nice person to hang out with 'till we drop dead." - Lorelai Gilmore_

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’ve always been the kind of girls who do everything together.

At eight years old, Madeline’s main feeling about riding is that she likes how she looks in the outfit. Like a miniature version of her mom. Her mount is a sweet gray pony who Madeline sometimes thinks can read her mind. She always knows if Madeline wants her to speed up or slow down or if she’s nervous or excited or happy. They walk endless sedate circles around the ring. Madeline doesn’t mind at all.

Louise saunters into riding camp three days late. She does exactly three circuits at the slow walk pace before getting impatient and grabbing the reins from the trainer. She throws off her helmet as she canters out of the barn, her blond hair streaming behind her.

Madeline’s gentle, well bred little pony rears up on its hind legs and races after her.

Louise is trying to get kicked out. Her dad is coming home next week.

Then she sees Madeline clinging to her horse’s neck as they charge through the forest behind her.

She decides she might like to stick around.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Gynnifer pokes her head around the doorway to Louise’s room.

“You girls need anything?” 

She’s relentless perky. Aside from a serious pilates fixation, this seems to be her defining characteristic.

“We’re fine,” Louise tells her.

“New nanny?” Madeline asks as Gynnifer flounces off.

“New stepmother. My souvenir from Daddy’s trip to California.”

“She’s pretty.”

“Please. They’re all pretty.” 

“What happened to Kiki?”

“She split. Right in the middle of redoing the dining room.”

“Your dining room was nice.”

“Nicer than Kiki. Now it’s a mess of wallpaper samples and all the tile has to be replaced.”

Gynnifer lasts eighteen months. Longer than most.

Two weeks before her thirteenth birthday party, Louise walks into Gynnifer’s work out studio.

“I need you to sign the check for the caterers.”

Gynniffer nods bouncing up and down on her exercise ball.

Louise turns to leave.

“One sec,” Gynnifer says. “I need to talk to you. Woman to woman.”

Louise stares at where the dining room table used to me.

“What about?”

“Look, I know you and your friend are the kind of little girls who like spending all your time together.”

It’s true. It’s been true for years now. If Madeline’s mom signs her up for Modern Dance, Louise puts on a black leotard and joins her. If Louise decides she needs a new wardrobe, Madeline spends hours flipping through fashion magazines and watching Louise try on outfits at the mall. If Madeline’s mom is dating a big game hunter, Louise invites her to sleep over every night so she won’t get all upset about having to see animal heads on the walls.

“So?”

“You’re not so little anymore. You’re about to be a teenager. Which is when exclusive friendships stop being cute and start being a little weird. You know what I mean.” 

She gives Louise a significant look for emphasis. 

Louise narrows her eyes. “I hope you have a good pre-nup. You’re gonna need it.” 

Gynnifer is gone three days later. Daddy was tired of her anyway. He hires a new assistant who made it to the semi-final round of Top Model.

But Louise can’t unhear what she said. She starts to notice things. The way she and Madeline always hold hands. The way she felt when Madeline hung a poster of Orlando Bloom on her ceiling. 

It’s a lot to think about. 

She doesn’t have much attention to spare for her classes.

She’s doing a group project with Paris Gellar for English.

She catches herself staring at Madeline. 

Paris has sharp eyes and a no nonsense manner.

She notices, too.

“Hall pass,” Paris demands imperiously. Ms. Benson stares at her. Paris holds out her hand. “I don’t want any of these ne’er do wells stealing my top shelf presentation ideas.”

The moment they’re out of the class room, Paris drags Louise down the hall into an empty girls bathroom.

“What’s your deal?” Paris says, tilting her chin curiously.

“What’s your damage?” Louise answers. 

“I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

Something bubbles up in Louise’s stomach. Like she drank too much Diet Soda at lunch.

Paris takes a step forward.

“Two girls always together. Never see one without the other. Eventually, people might start to talk.”

“What do you want, Paris?”

“I want to help! I don’t care what kind of Sapphic circle lip gloss exchange you two have going on! Two girls who are as tight as you - it’s inevitable someone is going to look at you one of these days and wonder if you’re a couple. Then they ask the lunkhead next to them at the lunch table and he starts to get a little turned on picturing it in his head. And before you know it, you’re a social outcast and a favorite wank fantasy of the JV Crew team.”

Louise purses her lips.

“Go on.”

“But three girls. Three girls who are all friends - that’s not a couple. That’s a triumverate. That’s a girl gang. That’s power, baby.”

Louise gives her an appraising look, folds her arms over her chest.

“Just to be clear, this is your way of making friends?”

“Exactly.”

Louise thinks it over for a minute, then shrugs.

“Okay.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Louise joins the newspaper staff.

Madeline does, too. 

She pretends to be interested in writing boring articles about the nutritional value of the lunch menu, the robotics team’s implosion at the regional science fair.

She pretends not to mind that Paris is always around now.

She pretends to be a little air-headed.

Boys like that, and Louise likes boys.

Madeline pretends to like them, too.

They go on lots of double dates.

They prefer guys who are brothers.

Teammates.

Twins.

Kissing a boy who looks like the boy Louise is kissing feels like it’s as close as she can get to actually kissing Louise.

Then one night, they’re fifteen and sleeping over at Louise’s house after sneaking into a rave at U Conn.

Madeline’s mom is in rehab after her latest boyfriend left her for a model. 

Louise’s stepmom is on the phone in the East Wing, shouting at her dad so loud they can hear it all the way in Louise’s bedroom.

“Sounds like the honeymoon is over,” Louise says, curling up against Madeline. “And they just got back from their actual honeymoon two days ago.”

Madeline relaxes as she snuggles into Louise’s curves.

“Hey. Did you ever think that maybe your dad and my mom could -”

“No,” Louise says, before Madeline finishes the thought.

“We could live together, though. Be sisters.” 

Spend all their time together without anyone thinking it’s weird, which she suspects is why Louise keeps Paris around most of the time.

Louise rolls her entire body over Madeline, so she can look her in the eyes.

Her gaze is so intense, it makes Madeline’s whole body feel hot. 

“I don’t want to be your sister.”

And then Louise leans in and kisses her and Madeline opens her mouth and moans against her tongue and there are hands and soft lips and their bodies pressed together so tight that it’s like they’re one person, like there’s no space between them at all.

It leaves them both panting and breathless.

“That was practice,” Louise says. “For the real thing.”

“Practice makes perfect,” Madeline says, pulling her close again.

She pretends Louise’s skin against hers doesn’t feel like the only real thing in the world.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Louise’s father is on trial.

Not even for anything glamorous. Securities Fraud. Insider Trading. A bunch of other charges that Louise hopes will put the jury to sleep before they can vote to convict.

His bank accounts are frozen.

She has to put on a fancy dress and ask her grandmother to pony up for her Chilton tuition.

Madeline goes with her. Charms Nana with a bunch of stories about how smart Louise is, how many boyfriends she has, how important she is on student council.

The old bat eats it up. She might be getting a little senile.

When they’re leaving, Nana takes her aside to write the check.

“I like that girlfriend of yours,” she says, squeezing Louise’s arm. “She’s quite something.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Grant takes a plea deal.

Madeline ditches school to be with Louise the day of the sentencing.

The latest stepmother took off the day the police showed up with a search warrant. She was last seen backing into a cop car to get out of the driveway and pelting the officer with a lacey green thong as she peeled away.

Louise is living totally by herself. 

And her dad is going to jail for the next three to five years.

Madeline puts an arm around her.

Louise rests her head on Madeline’s shoulder.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’re nineteen and life is one extended Spring Break. 

It’s all sand and free drinks and kissing “for the boys” at every nightclub in Florida.

But what they do when they get back to the hotel room, that’s for them.

Louise knows she’ll have to go back to Tulane.

Eventually.

Or maybe they can both go to Sarah Lawrence.

Or NYU. 

Get an apartment together in the city.

The natural state of the world is for her to have Madeline by her side.

Being apart feels wrong.

Like walking out of the house wearing the wrong shoes.

Unbalanced.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Madeline is sitting on the beach, throwing a stick for their dog to catch.

The sun is setting over the water. 

Louise is reading a magazine on the deck.

“Look at this picture,” she says, sliding her sunglasses down her nose. “Brooklyn Decker’s new bathtub.”

Madeline grimaces. “Tin? That can’t be comfortable.”

“Right? Who wants to get naked in an antique?”

“You could get tetanus.”

“Exactly.”

“My mom texted. She wants to visit next month.”

“Let me guess, Raoul left.”

“She left him. But she’ll still be all sad and drinking that weird French vodka.”

“My dad’s getting ready to propose to Shawna.”

“His prison pen pal?”

“You know what they say, seventh time’s the charm.”

“Or.”

“Or what?”

“Or maybe some people get it right the first time.”

Louise grins.

“People like us?”

Madeline pulls out the ring.

It’s perfect.

They’ve always been the kind of girls who do everything together.


End file.
